Influence

Poem for the Day

(Make sure everything you say and do create a positive influence on others. Someone is watching and listening! And you can never be sure who it is.)

Influence
by Edgar Albert Guest

This I think as I go my way:
What can matter the words I say,
And what can matter the false or true
Of any deed I am moved to do?

This I think as I go along:
What can matter my right or wrong?
Whichever path I may choose to take,
What possible difference can it make?

This I think as I go to town:
What can matter my smile or frown?
Can any one's destiny altered be
For better or worse because of me?

And something whispers;
'Another may be sadly deceived
By the words you say.
And another, believing and trusting you,
May be led astray by the things you do.'

'For much that never you'll see or know
Will mark your days as you come and go.
And in countless lives that you'll never learn
The best and the worst of you will return.' 

Improvement

Improvement

by Edgar Albert Guest

The joy of life is living it, or so it seems to me;
In finding shackles on your wrists, then struggling till you're free;
In seeing wrongs and righting them, in dreaming splendid dreams,
Then toiling till the vision is as real as moving streams.
The happiest mortal on the earth is he who ends his day
By leaving better than he found to bloom along the way.
Were all things perfect here there would be naught for man to do;
If what is old were good enough we'd never need the new.
The only happy time of rest is that which follows strife
And sees some contribution made unto the joy of life.
And he who has oppression felt and conquered it is he
Who really knows the happiness and peace of being free.
The miseries of earth are here and with them all must cope.
Who seeks for joy, through hedges thick of care and pain must grope.
Through disappointment man must go to value pleasure's thrill;
To really know the joy of health a man must first be ill.
The wrongs are here for man to right, and happiness is had
By striving to supplant with good the evil and the bad.
The joy of life is living it and doing things of worth,
In making bright and fruitful all the barren spots of earth.
In facing odds and mastering them and rising from defeat,
And making true what once was false, and what was bitter, sweet.
For only he knows perfect joy whose little bit of soil
Is richer ground than what it was when he began to toil. 

Live For Today!

I found this one among my dad's papers left behind when he died.

Live For Today!
by Joyce Williams

Do you always look for tomorrow
And the happiness it may bring?
Do you sometimes look at yesterday
As a time of better things?
You're missing out on the jam of life
For the jam is the sweetness of today.
The treats - the nice things heard said.

In each single day there are blessings,
But good things are sometimes ignored
As we all tend to focus on troubles -
Then the pleasures are never explored.
We are only too often so worried
About how to bring home the bread
That in the work and the eating,
We don't taste the jam that is spread.

So let "Live for Today" be your motto.
To today give all of your best;
For yesterday's passed and completed.
What's done is done - let it rest.
Tomorrow is only a daydream -
We cannot predict what it holds.
Give your best to today - see the blessings,
No matter what challenge unfolds.

Each challenge itself is a blessing
In God's long and far-reaching plan;
But in our short sights, we can't always see
The great end result, as He can.
The Lord has hold of our coattails;
His love will not let us go.
So we miss the best if we miss today;
Its pleasures we'll never know.

Don't let thoughts of tomorrow snatch you
From living each moment today.
You may miss the very answer
God sends to pave tomorrow's way.
Take time to smell the roses,
To taste the jam so sweet;
Don't look at life as thorns and crumbs;
You'll miss today's special treat!

If You Would Please Me

Poem for the Day

If You Would Please Me
by Edgar Albert Guest

If you would please me when I've passed away
Let not your grief embitter you. Be brave; 
Turn with full courage from my mounded grave 
And smile upon the children at their play;
Let them make merry in their usual way;
Do not with sorrow those young lives enslave 
Or steal from them the fleeting joys they crave; 
Let not your grieving spoil their happy day.
Live on as you have lived these many years, 
Still let your soul be gentle and be kind —
I never liked to see those eyes in tears! 
Weep not too much that you must stay behind;
Share in the lives of others as you'd share, 
If God had willed it still to leave me there. 

If You and I

Poem for the Day

If You and I
by Edgar Albert Guest

IF you would smile a little more 
And I would kinder be, 
If you would stop to think before 
You speak of faults you see. 
If I would show more patience, too, 
With all with whom I'm hurled, 
Then I would help and so would you 
To make a better world.

If you would cheer your neighbor more
And I'd encourage mine, 
If you would linger at his door 
To say his work is fine, 
And I would stop to help him when 
His lips in frowns are curled, 
Both you and I'd be helping then 
To make a better world.

But just as long as you keep still
And plod your selfish way, 
And I rush on, and heedless kill
The kind words I could say; 
While you and I refuse to smile
And keep our gay flags furled, 
Someone will grumble all the while
That it's a gloomy world. 

If Those Who Love Us...

Poem for the Day

If Those Who Love Us
by Edgar Albert Guest

If those who love us find us true 
And kind and gentle, and are glad 
When each grim working day is through 
To have us near them, why be sad? 

If those who know us best rejoice 
In what we are and hold us dear, 
What matter if the stranger's voice
Shall speak the bitter jibe and jeer?

If those who cling to us still smile
Though grim misfortune has us down,
If they still think our work worth while, 
What matters it if strangers frown? 

If This Were All

Poem for the Day

If This Were All
by Edgar Albert Guest

If this were all of life we'll know,
If this brief space of breath
Were all there is to human toil,
If death were really death,
And never should the soul arise
A finer world to see,
How foolish would our struggles seem,
How grim the earth would be!

If living were the whole of life,
To end in seventy years,
How pitiful its joys would seem!
How idle all its tears!
There'd be no faith to keep us true,
No hope to keep us strong,
And only fools would cherish dreams—
No smile would last for long.

How purposeless the strife would be
If there were nothing more,
If there were not a plan to serve,
An end to struggle for!
No reason for a mortal's birth
Except to have him die—
How silly all the goals would seem
For which men bravely try.

There must be something after death;
Behind the toil of man
There must exist a God divine
Who's working out a plan;
And this brief journey that we know
As life must really be
The gateway to a finer world
That some day we shall see. 

I'd Rather Be A Failure

Poem for the Day

I'd Rather Be A Failure
by Edgar Albert Guest

I'd rather be a failure than the man who's never tried;
I'd rather seek the mountain-top than always stand aside.
Oh, let me hold some lofty dream and make my desperate fight,
And though I fail I still shall know I tried to serve the right.

The idlers line the ways of life and they are quick to sneer;
They note the failing strength of man and greet it with a jeer;
But there is something deep inside which scoffers fail to view- 
They never see the glorious deed the failure tried to do.

Some men there are who never leave the city's well-worn streets;
They never know the dangers grim the bold adventurer meets;
They never seek a better way nor serve a nobler plan;
They never risk with failure to advance the cause of man.

Oh, better 'tis to fail and fall in sorrow and despair,
Than stand where all is safe and sure and never face a care;
Yes, stamp me with the failure's brand and let men sneer at me,
For though I've failed the Lord shall know the man I tried to be. 

I Mustn't Forget

Poem for the Day

I Mustn't Forget
by Edgar Albert Guest

I mustn't forget that I'm gettin' old,
That's the worst thing ever a man can do.
I must keep in mind without bein' told
That old ideas must give away to new.
Let me be always upon my guard
Never a crabby old man to be,
Youth is too precious to have it marred
By the cranky whims of a man like me.

I must remember that customs change
An' I've had my youth an' my hair is gray,
Mustn't be too surprised at strange
Or startlin' things that the youngsters say;
Mustn't keep the bit in their mouths too tight,
Which is something, old people are apt to do.
What used to be wrong may today be right
An' it may not be wrong just becoz it's new.

Want 'em to like me an' want 'em to know
That I need their laughter an' mirth an' song,
An' I want 'em near, coz I love 'em so,
An' home is the place where their smiles belong.
They're growin' up, an' it seems so queer
To hear them talk of the views they hold,
But age with youth shouldn't interfere
An' I musn't forget that I'm gettin' old. 

Ain't Dead Yet!

Poem for the Day

I Ain'T Dead Yet - Poem 

by Edgar Albert Guest

Time was I used to worry and I'd sit around an' sigh,
And think with every ache I got that I was goin' to die,
I'd see disaster comin' from a dozen different ways
An' prophesy calamity an' dark and dreary days.
But I've come to this conclusion, that it's foolishness to fret;
I've had my share o' sickness, but I Ain't Dead Yet!

Wet springs have come to grieve me an' I've grumbled at the showers,
But I can't recall a June-time that forgot to bring the flowers.
I've had my business troubles, and looked failure in the face,
But the crashes I expected seemed to pass right by the place.
So I'm takin' life more calmly, pleased with everything I get,
An' not over-hurt by losses, 'cause I Ain't Dead Yet!

I've feared a thousand failures an' a thousand deaths I've died,
I've had this world in ruins by the gloom I've prophesied.
But the sun shines out this mornin' an' the skies above are blue,
An' with all my griefs an' trouble, I have somehow lived 'em through.
There may be cares before me, much like those that I have met;
Death will come some day an' take me, but I Ain't Dead Yet! 

Human Failings

Poem for the Day

Human Failings
by Edgar Albert Guest

RECKON when our days are done
And God takes up our record sheets, 
And sees the battles we have won, 
He'll want to read of our defeats.


Our little failings He will view,
And gaze at us with kindly smile,
And maybe say: 'I see that you 
Have faltered every little while.' 


I reckon that he'll like to see
The blots and blemishes between
The splendid works of you and me,
To learn how human we have been. 

His Other Chance

Poem for the Day

His Other Chance
by Edgar Albert Guest

He was down and out, and his pluck was gone,
And he said to me in a gloomy way:
'I've wasted my chances, one by one,
And I'm just no good, as the people say.

Nothing ahead, and my dreams all dust,
Though once there was something I might have been,
But I wasn't game, and I broke my trust,
And I wasn't straight and I wasn't clean.'


'You're pretty low down,' says I to him,
'But nobody's holding you there, my friend.
Life is a stream where men sink or swim,
And the drifters come to a sorry end;


But there's two of you living and breathing still—
The fellow you are, and he's tough to see,
And another chap, if you've got the will,
The man that you still have a chance to be.'


He laughed with scorn. 'Is there two of me?
I thought I'd murdered the other one.
I once knew a chap that I hoped to be,
And he was decent, but now he's gone.'


'Well,' says I, 'it may seem to you
That life has little of joy in store,
But there's always something you still can do,
And there's never a man but can try once more.


'There are always two to the end of time—
The fellow we are and the future man.
The Lord never meant you should cease to climb,
And you can get up if you think you can.


The fellow you are is a sorry sight,
But you needn't go drifting out to sea.
Get hold of yourself and travel right;
There's a fellow you've still got a chance to be.'